12 Kolkata: Supreme Court on Friday asked Bengal govt to deposit with it 25% of the arrears in dearness allowance of employees and pensioners. The bench of justices Sanjay Karol and Sandeep Mehta ordered the state to comply with its directive within three months.With the state repeatedly citing lack of "paying capacity", the bench remarked that Bengal had sufficient funds and should not find this burdensome.During the hearing, Bengal govt admitted that its liability towards DA arrears stood at Rs 41,770.95 crore. The figure accounts for dues from Jan 1, 2006, to March 31, 2008, and from April 1, 2008, to Dec 31, 2015, and includes amounts payable to state govt employees, pensioners and grant-in-aid staff. Accordingly, the bench directed that 25% — Rs 10,442.73 crore — of the amount payable be deposited. DA liability after Dec 31, 2015, is yet to be determined.Compliance with this direction is a precondition for the matter to be listed in Aug 2025 for final hearing, the bench stated.In May 2022, Calcutta HC had told the state to clear DA arrears, holding that DA was the legitimate right of state govt employees and not a "gift of charity". Challenging this, Bengal govt moved SC in Nov 2022. In Dec last year, state govt announced an additional 4% DA for its employees.As the matter came up for hearing on Friday, SC first indicated that it was not inclined to interfere with the HC judgment, observing orally that there appeared to be no merit in the challenge raised by Bengal govt. However, senior counsel Abhishek Manu Singhvi, representing state govt, argued that the HC order was erroneous and the state's contentions should be heard. Initially, SC had proposed a 50% deposit, but upon repeated submissions by Singhvi on the state's financial hardship, the amount was reduced to 25%.Bengal govt had adopted the recommendations of the 5th Pay Commission under the ROPA Rules, 2009, to pay DA. However, challenges have been repeatedly made in courts claiming that the state had persistently disbursed DA at lower rates and with retrospective delays, without presenting any alternate calculation methodology or justification. While Centre maintains a biannual DA revision, the state discontinued this practice after 2010.